Entrepreneurs, artists and creators of intellectual work often havelimited means of getting their intellectual outputs published.Invariably the needs of the creator are secondary to those of thelarge, corporate publisher who relies on a business model that takes asizeable cut of the profits, and endeavours to hold all the rights tothe intellectual work.

Within this business model there is little scope for creators whowould like to not only make a living from their work but would alsowish to provide their audiences and target markets with greaterfreedom to sample, copy, share or build upon their works in order todevelop a useful and sustainable pool of resources for the community.In this sense OpenBusiness entrepreneurs are realizing thatcollaboration, sharing, and giving can be economic activities, whilethey are at the same time a cultural and social form of interaction.

However, any of these creators who wishes to move away from thetraditional publishing business model that strictly controls therights, dissemination and profits of the work, often have to rely ontheir own intuition. There is no well structured overview of howcreative entrepreneurs can integrate into their business models,open-content licences which offer both the user a variety of freedomsand the creator a number of protections.

A collaborative research project entitled OpenBusiness(http://www.openbusiness.cc) is currently being compiled by academicinstitutions based in Brazil (FGV Law School in Rio de Janeiro), theUnited Kingdom (Oxford University, London School of Economics andMichael Young Foundation) and South Africa (LINK Centre, at theUniversity of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg), to provideentrepreneurs, artists and creators with practical guides about how toincorporate Creative Commons open-content licences and otheropen-content licences into their business models.

The team involved in the OpenBusiness project will be presenting theOpenBusiness concept and findings to date on the 8th February 2006.The presentation will include:

§ an introduction to the project§ objectives and outcomes of OpenBusiness§ country-specific examples of successful OpenBusiness projectsfrom the UK, Brazil and South Africa§ the future of OpenBusiness, and§ general discussion and debate.

DATE:Wednesday, 8 February 2006

TIME:17h30 - 19h00

VENUE:Classroom 9, The Donald Gordon Building, Wits P&DM

ADDRESS:2 St David's Place, Parktown, Johannesburglight snacks will be served

Christian Ahlert:Christian Ahlert is a public project lead of Creative Commons Englandand Wales. He is a fellow at the Michael Young Foundation, where he isestablishing an organization to support and protect the cultural andintellectual commons in a sustainable way. He is Research Associate ofthe Oxford Internet Institute at Oxford University, where he is also aSenior Research Associate of the Centre for Brazilian Studies.Previously, he worked at the Programme in Comparative Media Law andPolicy at Oxford. In addition he managed a number of EuropeanCommission projects in the area of internet and media policy, as wellas international development and technical assistance projects.

Ronaldo Lemos:Ronaldo Lemos is the director of the Center for Technology & Societyat the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV) Law School in Rio de Janeiro.He is the project lead for the Creative Commons project in Brazil, anda member of the International Commons Board. He is an LL.B. and anLL.D. from the University of Sao Paulo, and an LL.M. from Harvard LawSchool. He is one of the founders of the collaborative sitewww.overmundo.com.br.

Carolina Rossini:Carolina Rossini is a member of the Center for Technology & Society atthe Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV) Law School in Rio de Janeiro,Brazil. She coordinates the the regional Open Business project inBrazil, which includes actions in two other Latin American countriesand also in Nigeria. She earned an MBA in E-Business from theInstituto de Empresas de Madri, Spain, and a Master Degree inInternational Negotiation from the joint program offered byUNICAMP/UNESP/PUCSP, São Paulo, Brazil. Carolina is a lawyer graduatedfrom Universidade de São Paulo (USP) and studied InternationalRelations at the Pontifical Catholic University of Sao Paulo (PUC).She worked for 6 years as the legal counsel for the Telefonica Groupin Brazil.

Heather Ford:Heather Ford is the public project lead for Creative Commons SouthAfrica. She has a Bachelor of Journalism degree from Rhodes Universityand a certificate in Telecommunications Policy, Law and Managementfrom the University of the Witwatersrand Link Centre. She worked withCreative Commons when she was a fellow at the Reuters Digital VisionFellowship Program at Stanford University, California and is nowrunning Creative Commons South Africa and a programme entitled'Commons-sense: Towards an African Digital Information Commons'(www.commons-sense.org). The programme focuses on encouraging accessto and development of accessible educational content on the internet;developing case studies of open content business models; and engagingin the local cultural 'commons' in order to encourage local content inthe film, music and creative industries.

Andrew Rens:Andrew Rens is the legal lead for Creative Commons South Africa. Hestudied at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg where heread for the degrees of Bachelor of Arts (BA), and of Law (LLB). Afterqualifying as an attorney he researched Intellectual Property Issueson the Internet for the Master of Laws degree again at Wits LawSchool. At Wits he subsequently taught Intellectual Property,Telecommunications, Broadcasting, Space and Satellite, and Media Lawand pioneered a course in Information Technology Law. He is currentlya fellow of the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, researchingaccess to knowledge and alternative copyright issues.

Kerryn McKay:Kerryn McKay is currently employed as a researcher at the LINK Centreat the University of the Witwatersrand. Kerryn holds a Bachelor ofJournalism from Rhodes University, majoring in Journalism & MediaStudies and English. She has worked for a number of years in theadvertising and marketing industries, and was most recently themarketing director at a commercial property consultancy whichspecialises in education and training for both the public and privatesectors, and the undertaking of property audit reviews and duediligences.